It’s time to redirect these words back to where they belong, the real
perpetrators of terrorism and violence and extremism, those very same
animal abuse industries.While we may disagree with each
others’ methods, let’s not call one another violent.Be
specific with language.Call it illegal.Call
it criminal.Call it a good tactic or a bad tactic.

Express your honest opinion, of course, but end your support or
criticism with a reminder that the real violence is happening every day
in laboratories to fellow primates like chimpanzees and baboons and
monkeys and to millions of other mammals likes rabbits and rats and mice
and guinea pigs as well as reptiles by the millions for research that is
often unnecessary, redundant and just bad, unpredictive science.

The
real violence is the imprisonment and abuse of millions of cows and
sheep and chickens and pigs and goats and pheasants and quail and fish
under horrific conditions without mercy.

Because it tastes good.And because the industry’s
profit margins are more important than basic, simple compassion.That’s extremism.

Real
terror and violence are endured by the fox and mink and lynx and
chinchillas and wild coyote and raccoon and endangered bear and domestic
cats and dogs for fur coats and stoles and trim.For
vanity.

Extreme is imprisoning our planet’s most breathtaking, intellectually
and socially advanced creatures, dolphins and whales and elephants, in
circuses and marine theme parks and forcing them to perform for us
because our entertainment trumps their individual happiness.

Extremism is manifest in the zoos that frustrate every natural
instinct that an animal has because we like the spectacle.

They may use these words on us, those interested in ending animal
exploitation.But these ideas are grown from the belly of
the “might makes right” beast, practiced over generations and perfected
by the modern animal industrial complex. The scope and
depth of animal abuse is so profound and so deeply rooted in our
cultural histories and traditions that it sometimes feels as if there’s
no end in sight.To crack this open is going to take unity.

When we
use these words on our fellow animal advocates and activists engaged
in the same moral fight, we fracture our progress. We have the
moral high ground. We have the truth. That’s obvious to
anyone in the animal industrial complex; that’s why they hide what they
do and use these terms to marginalize us and divide the movement.
It’s time we refuse to use this language on anyone who fights
for animal rights, and let the real animal use and abuse extremists take
their full and rightful ownership of the violence and terror they
create.